When the earth shook, Andersen prepared for the giant monster invasion without relying on the professor’s mercy.
“Everyone, start digging the ground with all your force! We need to create an underground stronghold to withstand the giant monster’s passage!”
They cleared the dirt, erected pillars, and fortified the ceiling, walls, and floor using earth hardening magic to create a hideout.
During vacation, their knowledge of civil engineering and manual labor skills from the class [Struggling through Ignorance] and other various life magic improved their work speed.
“If only I had known this fortification technique during [Sleeping Well Anywhere], I wouldn’t have had to endure being bitten by bugs while doing various resistance skill functions…!”
“If I had learned barrier protection magic before taking [Healing through Picnics], I could have created a hideout that could withstand brain-rattling sonic attacks or the vibrations of the giant monsters!”
“Skills forged through days filled with regret and pain shall finally see the light today!!”
If Ishtar survived thanks to the cooperation of the Empire nobles on the concrete ground, Andersen and Seoguyeon survived the giant monster invasion with their own abilities.
“Everyone, enter the temporary state of hypnosis learned in the Sleeping Well Anywhere lecture. We need to conceal ourselves so the giant monsters can’t detect our breathing or a thread of mana!”
Thanks to their thorough preparations, Prince Andersen and the group perfectly managed the crisis without a single person straying or falling behind!
Only after hearing the siren sound signaling the end of the lecture did they cautiously emerge from the underground, spitting out dirt.
On the ground were the giant monster beings, reduced to heaps of dirt, and the noble youths of the Empire, who were swallowed up and exhausted from wildly casting magic in extreme fear.
“Look. How pitifully those braggarts who thought they were great because they wore armor were defeated. This is the difference between our Seoguyeon and the Empire Nobles Alliance.”
The group of Seoguyeon felt a tiny, very tiny bit of respect.
It’s said even poop can be medicine, and the cursed insight of Prince Andersen is finally shining through!
Had they not chosen the mine lecture from the start, there wouldn’t have been such hardship, but thanks to attending it diligently, they felt a tiny sense of accomplishment knowing they could safely return even after choosing a core mine lecture.
“Not bad. I never expected so many first-year students to finish the first lecture safely.”
“That’s too kind. It’s only because we didn’t have the leisure to prepare for an invasion by monsters other than the giant ones that we were lucky this time.”
“Your mindset is commendable as well. Just like the students from Ishtar or Oknodie, you both have made quite the impression.”
At Professor Robert Elahim’s praise, Prince Andersen suddenly became curious.
“How did those two manage to endure the giant monsters’ invasion?”
“The Ishtar student provoked the Empire faction students, making them concrete the land above the fortifications he created, easily allowing him to survive.”
“Such a clever method…!”
Using the enemy’s strength as a resource for one’s own safety, it truly was the wits of Ishtar, who had risen to be the top student of first year!
“Then what about Oknodie? How did they endure?”
“They flew.”
“Eh?”
“When flying up to 200 meters above sea level, giant monsters that feed on the earth below show no interest in creatures above their eye level.”
“Such a method…!”
“The mana used for flying magic was far less than the effort you expended building fortifications or drawing enemies in. For skilled individuals, the mana cost to maintain flight is even lower.”
Professor Robert informed the students who survived with excellent responses that there were better answers.
“Flying magic isn’t part of the second-year curriculum but is a third-year survival skill. However, truly useful techniques should be learned even through previewing. Don’t dwell on the excuse of being second-year; it’s better to put effort into previewing. With that in mind, I will teach you flying magic, so I hope you learn it by the next lecture time.”
Learning a new spell can take less than ten minutes if you understand the right spell structure, but understanding that structure, principles, and the theory can take days, if not longer.
Raising proficiency and improving casting speed takes several weeks at a minimum for practical, fluid use.
“Is just the basics enough?”
“Proficiency doesn’t matter. If you come back having only partially learned and suffer for it, it won’t be the professor who suffers, but you students.”
“……”
“Although it’s okay to give up on the class, you’ll end up taking such a class in third year anyway. By then, you won’t even be able to rely on the instructors’ help. Don’t miss your chance and regret it later.”
He was a mad professor who abused students, but frustratingly, everything he said was undeniably true.
“Don’t treat us like cowards or fools. We’re determined to master flying magic perfectly by next week!”
Whatever it takes, he would conquer this class.
And for such a trivial lecture, he would leave a review saying it was so pathetic he was sick of it!
Prince Andersen steeled his resolve as he made such mad vows.
*
“Just as I heard, the students of Class 981 are quite impressive. Professor Bronze.”
After the students left, Professor Robert spoke to the shadow of the torch.
Like the flames flickering in the wind, the shadow undulated, revealing the curves and form of a woman.
“How was my disciple?”
“Oknodie. Truly a peculiar child. Though Ishtar, the Emperor’s assassin, and Prince Andersen possess atypical strength for their year, that child has a markedly different sense of alienation.”
Oknodie, who had risen to the air first to evade the crisis, had likewise flown up to stand beside the professor, evading the gaze of all the students.
“Is that a pass?”
“Good instinct. It’s a pass.”
“Wow!”
“But what have you been humming since a while ago?”
“The crisis warning background music!”
“Oh? You know the Empire’s crisis warning?”
Oknodie, who had already mastered the alarm bell that rings solely in emergencies and disasters, found it to be quite strange.
The Empire’s alarms only implant a sense of emergency in the general population without informing them of proper countermeasures.
Interpreting alarms and alerting citizens is the job of the magicians stationed in each region.
Therefore, only a handful of magicians or bards who directly created the alarms can distinguish the differences between the various kinds of alarms.
“This is a giant monster alert, and this one is an undead alert! This one is a mana disaster alert, and this over here… and that one’s another…”
Continuing without pause came the alarm list.
When the number matched every type of alarm he knew, Robert Elahim felt an indescribable foreboding about the child named Oknodie.
Some alarms hadn’t sounded in nearly a century.
Some alarms indicated crises that should never sound at all.
Why would an ordinary person—no, someone who wasn’t even an alarm magician—need to know so many alarms?
‘If they weren’t intending to sound, there would typically be no reason to know them. After all, there’s no reason to prepare for a situation in which long-silent alarms suddenly sound.’
Oknodie and the foundation could pose all kinds of threats present on the continent.
To Robert Elahim, Oknodie was no longer a mere student, but a messenger of the foundation’s will.
“What exactly are you hoping for?”
“I don’t particularly wish for anything. Well, there’s something I wouldn’t mind having!”
With a bright smile, Oknodie asked.
“I’d like to have a theme song too!”
“A theme song…?”
“If the principal has a theme song, isn’t it unfair that the world’s only player like me doesn’t have one? If you have time later, would you help me make a theme song?”
A crisis alarm that signals peril for each region and even the world.
He wanted to create one inspired by himself.
There was no room for misinterpretation in that desire.
I want to toy with the world like a plaything.
Create an alarm that will announce my fears to the whole world.
At minimum, a giant monster invasion.
At maximum, an unknown threat that’s impossible to gauge.
To be that avatar of fear, the Dark Princess Oknodie demands cooperation.
‘Is this a joke? No, that child would never joke about such a thing.’
Having to possess the best insight to prepare for all disasters, he even saw the form of a soul embedded in the blood-colored violin.
[The soul of the Blood Band executive Elettrico]
[This soul suffers from never-ending mental anguish and plays screams eternally.]
[His soul never ceases the performance, knowing that the moment he stops, nightmares worse than hell will torment him…]
He saw it.
The anguished scream contained in the blood-colored violin behind that child.
Exploitation of souls.
The scream of malevolence.
She is already faithfully preparing to sing of disaster.
Of course, Professor could potentially kill Oknodie if needed.
He was stronger than an average professor.
But the fallout was the problem.
The director of the foundation.
First Wahyhiemhai.
He had no confidence surviving against the three great evils and the foundation’s scholarship students he commanded.
So he came to a rational conclusion.
Here, he had no choice but to yield to her insistence.
“If you achieve perfect scores in this class, then I will gladly cooperate at that time.”
“Wow! Did you promise? No changing your words later!”
All of that conversation took place high above, without even a shadow cast down.
Professor Bronze couldn’t eavesdrop on such discussions.
However, it was unavoidable that doubt arose.
Did Professor Bronze know the true nature of that child?
If he introduced him under the pretext of student bragging while knowing, then perhaps Professor Bronze was also in cahoots with the foundation.
‘Some unsettling events are happening in the academy. I should investigate the professors who taught Oknodie in the first year.’
With the new semester underway, the seeds of great evil began to grow.
A rapidly blooming threat begins to stir against the Empire.
A candidate to be the next great evil.
The presence of Dark Princess Oknodie began to become a concern for upperclassmen professors.
Unfortunately for the other students, this implied an insane rise in class difficulty.
